of his dark attraction reach out and take her by the throat. She swallowed, every instinct urging her to deny these new and troublous feelings which were invading her tranquillity.
She was defiantly glad she had made no effort to change. It would have been humiliating if he had interpreted such an action as an attempt by her to persuade him of her own femininity. The casualness of jeans and a top made her feel less vulnerable.
‘I have decided that we will eat outside tonight. It’s a perfect evening,’ he said. ‘Would you care for an aperitif?’
‘No—I mean—yes, I suppose so,’ she said, feeling unutterably gauche.
‘What do you drink?’ he enquired.
She was tempted to reply, ‘A glass of sherry—once a year for the Queen’s speech,’ and see what his reaction was, but she controlled herself.
‘What do you recommend?’ she countered brightly.
‘Perhaps you should try a pineau,’ he said. ‘It’s the local aperitif, and you probably won’t have come across it in England.’
How very true, Marty thought, as she followed him into the salon. He left her there with a quick polite word of apology while he went to fetch the drinks, and she wandered over to the glass doors that led out to the patio. A table set with a white linen cloth had been placed there, and Marty noticed with a sinking heart that place settings had only been laid for two. It appeared that Bernard would not be joining them, and she was going to have to suffer a dinner těte-à-těte with the master of the house—the very last thing she wanted under the circumstances. She gave a little barely perceptible sigh. The setting, the warm summer night, and the man who was soon to join her were all of the stuff that dreams were made on, and the sooner she remembered that she was prosaic Marty Langton, the better it would be for her. She had listened to the other girls who worked in her office gossiping about their boyfriends, but none of them had ever warned her that you could be physically attracted to a man you did not even like. She’d imagined there would be a safe pattern to these relationships—an enjoyment of a man’s company leading steadily on to warmer, more intimate feelings in the fullness of time.
But Luc Dumarais did not fit into any pattern that she had ever conceived, even in her wildest dreams. He was quite simply beyond her scope, and it worried her to realise how much of her thoughts he was beginning to monopolise.
‘Martine.’ She turned with a little start, to find that he had come silently back into the room and was standing close behind her holding out a glass to her.
‘A votre santé,’ he said rather mockingly, raising his own glass in salute.
She bent her head, muttering an embarrassed, ‘Cheers,’ and sipped at her drink which in spite of the fact that it was icy cold, spread a new and welcome warmth through her body. Its flavour was sweet and rather rich, and she smiled at him with rather shy appreciation.
‘It’s good.’
He inclined his head in acknowledgment. ‘Shall we take our drinks outside?’ he suggested.
The heat was not as intense as it had been earlier now that evening was approaching, and the merest whisper of a breeze came sighing through the clustering pines only yards from the house to disturb the stillness of the warm air.
César was lying on the patio, his head sunk on his paws. He lifted his head and barked as Marty appeared, but at a sharp word from his master he resumed his somnolent pose.
‘Are you frightened of dogs?’ Luc Dumarais held the chair for Marty to sit down.
‘I’m not really used to them,’ she answered truthfully.
He smiled slightly. ‘César will soon come to accept your presence here.’ He lifted a water jug from the table and added some water to the liquid in his glass, watching it appraisingly as it turned cloudy.
He spoke, Marty thought indignantly, as if it was all cut and dried that she was going to stay and work for him. She was just about to voice her thought when Madame Guisard appeared with the tureen of soup that constituted the first course, and she had perforce to save her comments for later.
‘Is Bernard not joining us?’ she asked tentatively as she picked up her spoon.
Luc’s dark brows drew together. ‘He is eating in his room,’ he said briefly. His tone did not encourage any further discussion, so Marty let the matter drop. She recalled Jean-Paul telling her that afternoon that Bernard had only come to live with his father a year ago. It seemed that even in that short period the relationship between them had deteriorated drastically. And she still wasn’t clear about Bernard’s motives for posting Uncle Jim’s letter as he had done. It seemed such a pointless thing to have done. Yet, she supposed philosophically, at least through his action she had learned that Uncle Jim had died, however painful the knowledge was. At least she now knew she had nothing to hope for, and that she had to put that childish dream of loving security which Uncle Jim had inculcated behind her for ever.
Had it really been a burden to him, she wondered, as she drank the delicately flavoured vegetable soup, that rash promise he had made to her all those years ago? The thought grieved her almost as much as the news of his death had done. She could imagine him becoming increasingly desperate as the years went by, and there seemed no way to redeem his promise, then this final reckless splurge on this villa he could not really afford. But even then he had hesitated to send for her, as if aware that it was all going to go wrong for him. Why else had he written the letter and not posted it? And his forebodings had proved only too real, it seemed, and she sighed imperceptibly as she laid down her spoon.
‘You look sad again,’ Luc Dumarais remarked as the fish, cooked in cream and mushrooms, was set in front of them. ‘Is the food not to your liking?’
‘Oh no, it’s magnificent.’ Marty glanced up startled. She had not realised he was observing her so closely. ‘I—I was just thinking about Uncle Jim.’
He shrugged. ‘That is natural. I hope these thoughts will persuade you to act sensibly.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked guardedly.
‘I should have thought it was obvious. Jacques must have had a deep concern for you to act as he did. Can you imagine his reactions now if he knew you were alone, without friends or money, refusing help when it was offered?’
She bent her head. ‘I think, like myself, he would have wanted to know a little more about what that help entailed before committing himself,’ she said in a low voice.
‘You surely don’t still suspect that I have designs upon your virtue?’ His brows rose. ‘Please believe, Martine, that I do not steal from cradles. And there are moments when you seem hardly older than Bernard.’
‘No, I don’t suspect—that.’ She felt that betraying colour rise in her cheeks again and prayed that he would not notice. Was it any wonder, she asked herself bitterly, that he had written her off as another gauche adolescent? ‘But—was it some kind of domestic work you had in mind or …’
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